A Katie Gardner Tale
by TEXGIRL-C-H-B
Summary: Katies life thoughout camp.
1. first day

I woke under a tree. I had no memory of what had happen the last couple of weeks.

"Where am I?" I wondered.

I looked down the hill and what I saw didn't make any sense. The place looked kinda like a camp. I saw kids playing on volleyball court and some canoeing on an open lake. When I looked farther into the distance and I saw a bunch of greek styled buildings.

"OOkay", I thought to myself, "this was weird".

At the end of the hill I could see a big blue house. I decided that maybe someone was in there that could explain all of this, so I started down the hill. Sitting on the porch of the house were two people. One was a tired, drunk and lazy looking man with deep black hair and a tiger printed shirt. The other man was in a wheelchair. He had brown hair and a brown beard. He was wearing a frayed tweed jacket and smelled like coffee. As I approached, the two men looked up at me and the tiger printed shirt man sniffed " gods Chiron, not another one."

"Now, now Mr. D" the man named Chiron said. "we are happy to accept any new campers."

"Where am I?" I asked them.

"Uhhhh, I've explained this too many times" Mr. D groaned, "i'm going to go take a nap."

He got up and went into the house.

"Where am I!" I repeated.

"Welcome to camp half blood" Chiron told me " this is a place for demi-gods, and you child, are a demi-god."

"a demi-what?"

"demi-god, it means that one of your parents were mortal and the other was one of the olympians- a god or goddess."

I looked at him dumbfounded. "What?" I asked,

He looked at me with pity, "come now, i'll have someone show you around, maybe you will understand better once you see the camp." then he got up out of his wheelchair. He kind of grew out of the wheelchair, looking like he had really long white pants on, then I realized that he was part horse. "Your a-"

"Centaur, yes" he interrupted "now come along."

While we walked along to wherever we were going, Chiron asked me some questions. "What is your name"

"Katie Gardner" I responded.

He also asked me whether I lived with my mom or dad. I took me a little longer to remember that. I thought hard and saw a picture image thingy in my mind and saw him."dad." I told him "I lived with my dad.

Finally we stopped next to an archery place and Chiron called over a girl. She looked about thirteen, like me, but she was a couple inches shorter. She had chocolate brown hair and golden brown eyes. "Hi" she told me "I'm Meg, daughter of Apollo."

"Would you show Katie around?" Chiron asked the girl.

She told him she would and led me off. Everything she showed me was amazing. there was a climbing wall with lava pouring down the sides, a greek pavilion styled mess hall, an armory, and an arena where she told me they held sword fights. I wondered why we needed to sword fight at a summer camp, but i decided not to say anything. There was also the woods where she said they sometimes played capture the flag. And, there were pegasus stables, I mean like flying horses. When we passed the strawberry fields I felt a strange pull in my gut. I ignored it and moved on. I saw that there was also a beach and an ocean. Meg caught me staring at the beach and said "Yep, thats long island sound. "What!" I said. We were in New York, I couldn't remember exactly where I lived before but I knew it was far from here.

Next, she took me to the cabins. There were twelve, in a U shape all around a central green about as big as a soccer field. In the middle of the field was a fire pit, some fountains, statues, and flowers. None of the cabins looked like the other. One of them was tall and looked kind of like a bank with lightning shapes shimmering on in. Another one was low and made of gray stones, one looked like a barbie house, another was blood red with barbed wire a a bores head. One of them was made of solid gold. (Meg told me that was her cabin.) One had smoke coming out of the top like a factory and one looked like a normal camp cabin. She explained that I would be staying in the Hermes cabin until I got claimed by my mom. She headed me towards the regular looking cabin and we went inside. There were only two people in the cabin, two boys both tall with curly brown hair and slightly arched eyebrows they looked our age. They both had blue eyes and mischievous smiles. They were looking at some kind of map and seemed to be planning something. When they saw us, they put the map away quickly and came to greet us.

"Im Travis Stoll" the taller of the two said "and this is my brother-"

"Connor" the other boy interruped.

They both smiled. But their smiles seemed kind of sarcastic, like they were trying to figure out if I had anything on me worth stealing. I could already tell that I didn't like these two. They showed me a spot on the floor and put a sleeping bag down, telling me that this was where I would be sleeping. The hermes cabin was crowded. There were bunk beds against the walls and a bunch of sleeping bags on the floor. I guessed that was because a lot of people probably not claimed and had to stay here. I felt kind of sad. What if my mom never claimed me and I was stuck in the Hermes with the Stoll brothers for the rest of my life. I started back to the entrance when the boy named Travis stuck out his foot and tripped me. I stumbled over it and fell, my face got red with embarrassment. Travis and Connor just laughed. I stormed out of the cabin, and Meg gave the boys a disgusted look and followed me out.

"Just ignore them" she told me. "They can be really annoying"

"No kidding" I answered.

The rest of the day passed pretty quickly. Me and Meg had fun while she showed me around the rest of the camp and introduced to a bunch of her friends.

At one point two kids walked out from the athena cabin, a boy and a girl. The boy looked our age and a girl about a year younger. They both had blonde hair and stormy gray eyes they were tall and athletic looking. We we passed them Meg froze, her face turned red.

"Hey Meg" the boy said

"Uhh, Hey Malcolm. Hi Annabeth."

They smiled and walked on. Meg let out a sight.

"OOOOOOOO" I teased. She slapped my shoulder "shut up."

I laughed, I cold tell she had a major crush on this Malcolm guy. Then the dinner horn sounded. Meg went back to the Apollo cabin and I went to Hermes. We set out to the mess hall. I was kind of bummed that we could only sit with our cabin, but dinner was fine enough. I watched the other kids ask for drinks and I copied them…

"Water" I told my cup. A clear liquid filled the glass.

I followed my cabin mates in getting food and then sacrificing some of it to the gods in a fire pit. When it was my turn, I put some grapes in and silently prayed to my mother, whoever she was, to help me and claim me. When dinner was over everybody went to the amphitheatre for a sing along led by the Apollo cabin, and s'mores. And after that we all went back to the cabins. When I hit my sleeping bag, I immediately fell asleep. It was the end of my first day at camp half blood.


	2. getting claimed

That night I had a dream. I was sitting in a regular school classroom in the middle of a test. I was having trouble reading the instructions because the words kept floating off the page. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow in the window. The shadow was big, like it couldn't even fit in this classroom, and it had more than one head. I turned towards the window to get a better look , but the shadow was gone. I started to get nervous. "What was that?" my dream self thought. Then the ground stared to rumble. All the other kids looked around nervously, then all of a sudden- BOOM-! I woke up in a cold sweat. And I was sure that that dream hadn't been fake. My memory was starting to come back.

A few days later I was taking a walk through the strawberry fields. For some reason I felt more at peace when I was in the fields. Campers around me were tending the plants and some satyrs were playing reed pipes that made the plants grow and kept away the bugs. All of a sudden everyone turned to me and stared. There was a glowing above my head and when I looked up, I saw a stock of wheat. "What was that?" I asked them.

"you have just been claimed." one girl said

"And my mother is…."

"Demeter." she told me "Goddess of agriculture."

I went back to my cabin and packed up my stuff. I was just about to leave when I heard a voice from the back of the cabin. "Leaving so soon?"

It was Travis Stoll, the last person in the world she wanted to see. Why wouldn't he just leave me alone?

"Ya" I told him "I just got claimed."

"by who?"

"Demeter."

He smirked. "Have fun plant lady."

I rolled my eyes and left the cabin. I walked across the field to cabin four. It looked nice, it had a grass roof and I felt totally at home. When I walked in there were a couple of girls and a few guys. They welcomed me and showed me my bed. Yes, I actually got a real bed, not a stupid sleeping bag on the floor. The head of our cabin was a girl named Maya. She was sixteen with long dirty blonde hair and yellowish brown eyes. The inside of the cabin was split in two, one side for girls and the other for guys. A curtain was hung in the middle, but it was open right now so you could see all of the cabin. In the window sills next to all the beds, there were bunches of different plants and flowers. It was much better than the hermes cabin.

The next couple of weeks I fell into the same routine. I went to activities with my cabin, I ate meals in the mess hall, and on breaks I hung out with Meg and her friends. One of the days when I was walking towards the mess hall for dinner, Travis came up to me and patted me on the back. He told me I was doing a good job at camp then he skipped off gingerly to dinner.

"What the heck" I called after him. But he didn't respond. When I was getting my food, I heard snickering behind me. I didn't know what they were laughing at so I just tried to ignore it. After we finished eating Chiron had an announcement. We would be playing capture the flag in the woods next friday after dinner. All the cabins cheered. When we were walking to the amphitheatre Meg came up behind be and ripped something off of my back. It was a piece of paper. She handed it to me and I saw that it said "PLANT LADY". "Im going to kill Travis." I told Meg. She laughed and we headed to the campfire.


	3. capture the flag

On friday after dinner, it was finally time for capture the flag. A bunch of armor, shields, and weapons appeared on the tables. I suited myself in armor and looked for a weapon. Nothing was well balanced so I just took a medium sized sword and headed to my cabin mates. Maya told me that the two leading teams this time were athena and apollo. On the athena team (blue) were the athena, hermes, dionysus, and hephaestes' cabins. On apollo's team (red) were apollo, ares, aphrodite, and my cabin, demeter. I was glad that I was on Meg's team and that the hermes cabin were our enemy. Now I could get back at Travis without getting in trouble. Our team was on the west side of the woods and the blue team got the east side. We hid our flags in a clump of rocks and had a bunch of apollo kids defending it, ready with their bows. I got to be on offense. It was my job, along with some other campers, to fight off some of the guards defending the flag so someone could grab their flag.

Chiron blew his horn and the game begun.

I set off into the woods, dodging trees, jumping over logs, and fighting off campers. I hid behind a tree to catch my breath for a second. I was alone, but then a few feet away, I saw a tall boy with curly hair. It was Travis. He walked along through the woods and I followed him. I was now right behind him, he was looking the other way. I raised my sword, just about to hit him on the head with it when he suddenly turned around and grabbed my wrist. The sudden movement made me unbalanced. We tumbled and hit the ground hard. I was now lying on the ground and Travis was on top of me. My stomach fluttered and I blushed. Wait this was Travis. The stupid guy that she HATED, maybe her fluttering stomach was just from the hard fall.

I rolled my eyes "get off of me."

he raised his hands in surrender and got up and laughed. "nice try but im too quick for you, Gardner."

i lunged with my sword but he blocked it with his. We fought for a few minutes and I thought I was doing pretty well, until I made a wrong move and next thing I knew his sword tip was at my throat. All he did was laugh.

I boiled with anger, I seriously hated this guy. He was now laughing even harder and let down his sword. I saw my chance. Quickly I raised my sword, and with the flat of my blade, I hit him in the head a hard as I could. It clanged against his helmet and he fell down looking dazed. I walked away, very pleased with myself. In the end, the other team ended up winning. I didn't care though. Getting back at Travis was worth losing a game of capture the flag.


	4. a new weapon

The next day she decided that she needed to get herself a balanced weapon. She went into the shed and let out a little gasp. there was every weapon imaginable. Spears, knifes, swords of every shape and size. There were also different kinds of magic items that turned into weapons.

While she was looking at some knifes, something shiny caught her eye. she picked it up and found it was a heart shaped silver locket with a silver chain. She opened it and found a little button in the middle of one of the sides. She pressed it and all of a sudden she felt something in her hand. When she looked down, she was holding a medium sized bronze sword. It appeared like it had just had materialized there. The hilt of it had a flower pattern, three roses intertwined.

It was perfectly balanced in her hands and she knew this sword was perfect for her.

Now that she had a weapon of her own, she could have sword fighting class. She wasn't really bad at it, but she liked her plant powers better. I kept practicing until I could beat almost everyone in my cabin. So I decided to take up more of a challenge and train with the apollo kids.

After one practice, I went down to the beach with Meg, her two sisters- Jenna and Lily, and three girls from the aphrodite cabin. We found a spot on the sand dunes and sat down. The aphrodite girls started to think of good couples to match up and we helped them. We spent a while laughing at some of the pairs we chose when Jenna said

"Katie, I think you would look cute with Travis"

"Eww no." I shot back "hate is guts." but then I thought about in the woods when he landed on me. I shuddered, shaking the idea out of my head.

They all laughed. Then I spotted Malcolm walking on the beach.

"Speaking of a cute, Meg." I said pointing behind them.

She turned around and saw him and her face went as red as a tomato. She barried her head in her hands.

I guessed the other girls already knew she liked him because they smiled and called him over. Malcolm walked over to our group. He grinned at us and then said "Hey Meg, can I talk to you?"

She looked up and nodded.

We all watched as they sat on a rock and talked. It felt like forever but then Malcolm went back up to his cabin. Meg waited until he was out of ear shot, then totally freaked out.

"AHHHHH O MY GODS!" she screamed running towards up.

"WHAT?" we asked her.

"he just asked me out" she squealed

We all screamed back and celebrated.

Talking about how cute they looked together.


	5. newws

HEYYY PPLS…sorry bout that long break-was rlly busy-havent written in awhile

=this next chapter is christmas= a couple of months had gone by(nothing rlly happened then)

but also, i have pictures on my profile of all the characters from chapter 4and on-

:)

srry if this story isnt good….its accually the first story i hav eva wrote


	6. wintergamezz

"WAKE UP KATIE! TIME TO OPEN PRESENTS!"

All the demeter kids were hustling around their cabin, growing christmas flowers and giving each other presents.

"No" I grumbled "just five more minutes."

"Don't make me pour water on you" my sister Rose warned.

That woke me up. I knew Rose wasn't joking about the water thing.

I got up out of bed. I was wearing striped pajama pants and a big t-shirt so I just slipped on some warm boots and sat next to my siblings near the Christmas tree. We all exchanged our presents and I ended up getting slippers, new gardening gloves, some clothes, an ipod, and some other cool stuff. I thanked my siblings and got dressed for the day ahead. I put on a t-shirt and sweater with jeans, boots, a hat, and some bracelets, and I was ready to go.

Outside looked like a winter land. Snow covered everywhere and colored lights and flames sparkled. In the central green in the middle of where the cabins were, was a giant Christmas Tree. The tree was the tallest I had ever seen. It had every color of lights covering it and ordiments of every shape and size. Around the tree was seats for all the campers and a couple fire pits so everyone could keep warm. All of a sudden I heard a voice screaming for me

"Katie! Come sit with us!" It was Meg. She sat near one of the fire pits with Jenna, Lily, and their two Aphrodite friends Paige, and Mary, They all looked like friggin supermodels. Meg had on a cute black dress with a black hat, and the other girls looked just as good. We all sat by the fire talking about presents and roasting marsh mellows when Chiron stood up and had an announcement.

"This year for Christmas we will have a winter games tournament, it will consist of a series of tasks and all the cabins are competing against each other."

All of the kids talked excited among themselves.

"the first challenge will start at noon" Chiron went on "go back to your cabins to get ready and meet back here in one hour."

Everyone got up and I was heading to my cabin when someone blocked my way. It was Travis.

He was bundled in a sweatshirt and jeans and his cheeks were rosy from the cold, but he still had his same mischevious smirk. "Better watch out Gardner, My cabins gonna beat you guys so bad, you'll be lucky to be alive by the end of the holiday"

I rolled my eyes. "yeah right" I pushed passed him to get to my cabin.

I WILL beat the Stolls if it is the last thing I do.


	7. 1st Task

Back in the Demeter cabin, we spent the hour coming up with stratagies. Chiron hadn't told us exactly what the challenges were but that didn't stop us. We came up with strengths and weaknesses of all our cabin mates. We all wanted to win this thing to prove that we wern't ONLY good with plants. The conch horn sounded and we all made our way to the christmas tree.

"Welcome back" Chiron told us in a kind of talk- show- host kind of voice. He was in full horse form except he wore a referees shirt over the top half of his body. "Are you guys all ready"

The campers all cheered in response.

"Okay, good. I see you all have your teams together." he told us "demeter cabin, your team color is yellow. Ares, yours is red. Athena, yours is blue. Apollo's is gold. Hephaestes, yours is gray. Aphrodite, pink. Hermes green. and Dionysus, yours is purple."

All of the teams got bandanas of their color for every member.

"The first task" Chiron went on "your team has to build a snowman"

some of the ares kids snickered

"No." chiron said "Not just any snowman. You have to make this snow man the best in the world. You can do anything to it. There is only one rule, you tourment any other teams' snowman. Me, Dionysus, and Argus will be the judges. Okay…..GO!"

All the campers rushed off with their teams to find good patches of snow to build their snowman. About an hour in to the competition, I thought my team was doing pretty well. We were running low on good snow so I decided to search in the woods for some more. I had just found a perfect patch of clear snow when I saw something a little bit away. It was the Hermes' cabin team and their snowman. Their snowman wasn't very good and it looked like they were running out of snow. Closer to where I was, I saw the Stoll brothers. They were kneeling in the snow with their backs facing me. They were digging up snow and throwing it in a pile behind them.

"Hmmmm" I thought "Maybe-wait no, Chiron said that was cheating, I couldnt"

But Travis was really smug about how he was going to beat our cabin so maybe it would wipe that smug look off his face if he lost. And nobody would know it was me so…

Finally I convinced myself. I crept quietly behind the Stolls and picked up the pile of snow they had worked so hard to find and ran. I ran as fast as I could behind a tree and peaked out from behind it. I looked just in time to see the two brothers turn around and see that they had no more snow. They groaned and fell on their backs, exhasted. I smirked to myself and ran back to my cabin's snowman.

Another hour passed and the conch shell sounded meaning that time was up. We all met back at the Christmas tree where Chiron, Dionysus, and Argus were waiting. They all wore referee shirts. Dionysus looked bored and Argus looked alert and keeping watch with all his eyes.

They judged all the snowmen in cabin order and the demeter cabin was first. Our Snowman was ten feet tall. Made out of only snow and plants. Pure white with roses all in his body. We got a 9/10! Next were the Ares, which sucked. It was lopsided and covered in red paint with a barbed-wire crown on top of his head-4/10. Athena's was pretty, but it was plain-6/10. Apollo got 8/10, hephaestes-8/10, also. Aphrodite looked more like a barbie doll than a snowman-5/10. Next was the hermes cabin. Theirs, thanks to me, was pewny because they didn't have enough snow. When I saw the thing I couldn't help but laugh. Travis glared at me and I swear my face got bright red. He looked very suspicious and angry. "Crap" I thought to myself "He knew it was me.

The first round ended. It was now about 2 in the afternoon and Chiron told us our next task would be a 6.

END OF ROUND 1 POINTS

1. Demeter= 9

2. Apollo & Hephaestes= 8

3. dionysus= 7

4. athena= 6

5. aphrodite=5

6. Ares= 5

7. hermes=2

When we were on our way back to the cabins i head a sharp voice that made me jump. "I know what you did Katie" Travis was standing right behind me "You broke the rules, and you'll pay" he walked off and I shuddered.

That was creepy. The whole was back to my cabin all that I could think of was "crap crap crap crap crap crap…."


	8. 2nd task

I know it is now way past Christmas now but I couldn't update because I was busy with school. It is still Christmas Day in the story though

The four hours we had before the next task passed by way to quickly for my liking. I was more nervous than I had ever been before. Not really about the task, but about the whole Travis problem. What if he told that I had cheated in front of everyone so then everyone would hate me. No. I couldn't think like that, I had to focus on winning this competition.

So when the horn blew that signaled it was time for the next task I was determined(but still nervous as hell) to win. We all gathered in the clearing waiting for Chiron to announce what the next task would be. It was snowing outside still and I was cold and ready to get this over with. Then my thoughts were interrupted as I felt something on my back. I grabbed at my back and felt a note tapped on there. I pulled it off and read 'I know your secret -Travis'.

I groaned. Regretting that I cheated and praying to the gods that my secret would be kept safe.

Chiron stepped into the clearing. "Listen up campers" he said "The second task will be a snowball fight" some of the apollo kids grinned- they were really good with aim.

"But the rules are like dodge ball" Chiron went on "If a snowball hits you your out, but you can't catch a snowball, so when your out,- your out for the entire rest of the game. The people who are out will come sit by me." "And remember, if you cheat, there will be consequences."

I blushed and looked around. Travis was staring right at me. I looked away.

All the teams went off to make snowballs and getting stationed, hiding behind trees, and creating barriers out of snow. I walked with my cabin mates until we found the perfect place to set up. There was a clump of trees that looked like a good barrier, and some logs on the ground that we could store snowballs in.

Chiron's horn sounded and the game began.

Everything was a blurr. Campers were running everywhere, snowballs whizzed through the air. Occasionally you would here a cuss or two from kids who got hit. But I thought I was doing good. I had a good arm, and I could dodge well so I was pretty easy not to get out.

Then all of a sudden I felt something crash on the back of my shoulder. I turned and saw Travis standing a few feet away, grinning stupidly at me. "Sorry sweetie" he said smirking "Your out of this game, and you can't get away with cheating this time"

I gave him a death glare. Oh how much I wanted to kill him right now. I was about to punch him, but i didn't need to get in anymore trouble. I frowned at him at walked off to where Chiron was standing.

In the end, Travis was the only one that hadn't gotten hit, so the Hermes cabin won. I honestly didn't mind too much because the Demeter cabin counselor Maya got second. And I my secret was safe- I was happy.

Sorry about the short story but more to come


End file.
